1. Plot

2. Cast

3. Filming

4. Marketing and release

5. Reception
    Critical response  Box office 

6. Soundtrack

7. References

8. External links

• Gauri Khan
• Shah Rukh Khan
• Sunir Khetarpal
• Akshai Puri
• Gaurav Verma

• Amitabh Bachchan
• Taapsee Pannu

• Amaal Mallik
• Anupam Roy
• Clinton Cerejo

Badla ({{translation|Revenge}}) is a 2019 Indian Hindi language mystery thriller film^[2] directed by Sujoy Ghosh and starring Amitabh Bachchan and Taapsee Pannu. Amrita Singh, Tony Luke, Manav Kaul and Tanveer Ghani appear in supporting roles. The film is produced by Red Chillies Entertainment and Azure Entertainment and is an official adaptation of the 2017 Spanish film The Invisible Guest.^[6][7] The story follows an interview between a lawyer and a businesswoman, in which the latter insists that she is wrongfully framed for the murder of her lover.

The film was released on 8 March 2019,^[8][9] and it received positive reviews from critics.^[10] It has grossed over {{INRConvert|135|c}} worldwide against a production budget of {{INRConvert|10|c}} to emerge as a commercial success.^[3][5][11]

Plot

Naina Sethi(Taapsee Pannu) is a young successful businesswoman with a perfect family. Naina's world turns topsy-turvy when she gets arrested for the murder of her secret lover Arjun (Tony Luke). Her lawyer Jimmy (Manav Kaul) hires prestigious defence attorney, Badal Gupta (Amitabh Bachchan) to defend her, and over the course of one late evening, they work together to find out what actually happened that fateful day. Badal tells Naina that a witness has landed and it will result in her getting arrested in no time. Naina explains that she and Arjun were blackmailed by someone for their extramarital affair. They were called to a hotel room in a remote location and told to bring money. When they arrive, Naina receives a text from Arjun's phone saying that the blackmailer is going to reveal the truth. She is suddenly attacked and becomes unconscious. When she wakes up, she finds Arjun dead with the blackmail money scattered everywhere and the police knocking. Naina gets arrested but claims that she did not commit the murder. The police finds no clue of anyone else being present in the room or breaking in. The Allen key, which opens the windows of the hotel rooms, was removed due to heavy snow.

Badal gets suspicious that Naina is not being honest with him and says he needs more information to build her case. He takes out the newspaper clipping about a youth named Sunny who had gone missing near the hotel and asks Naina how she is related to it.

Naina begins discussing her relationship to Sunny. The story begins three months prior when she had lied to her husband about travelling to Paris for a business trip and instead went to a cabin outside of scotland to meet with Arjun. At the end of their getaway, Naina begins to feel guilty about lying to her husband and daughter so she tells Arjun that she would like to end their relationship. While driving home, they get into a heated argument about this matter when a deer appears in front of the car and Naina loses control. She hits a car from the opposite direction. The impact kills the driver of the other car (Sunny). Naina panics but Arjun tells her that they cannot call the police if they want to proceed with their life. He convinces her that Sunny wasn't wearing a seat-belt and had been texting so his death was not their fault. They decide to flee but their own car fails to start and a car approaches them. Arjun hides Sunny's dead body and pretends that he is the owner of Sunny's car. When the driver stops to check, Naina and Arjun pretend that they are trading insurance information to deal with the accident. Sunny's phone starts ringing so Arjun pretends to pick up and talk to insurance agents. Once the driver leaves convinced, Naina disposes of Sunny's car in a swamp.

A couple, Rani (Amrita Singh) and Nirmal, stop their car and ask Arjun if he needs any help. Arjun is invited back to the couple's house to get Naina's car fixed. Upon arriving, he realizes that the couple is Sunny's parents, who are worried about their son. Rani calls Sunny's phone and since Arjun had forgot to dispose of Sunny's phone, it rings. Arjun pretends he had just been sitting on it but Rani and Nirmal are suspicious. Arjun and Naina return home but see Sunny on the news and become worried that they will be discovered.

Soon, Naina is identified as a suspect in Sunny's disappearance when the couple identifies her vehicle. Naina had already disposed of her car and registered it as having gone missing in scotland. This prompts the officials to ask Naina for evidence of her time there. Since Naina was never in Paris, she has Jimmy falsify her alibi and is able to remove her name from Sunny's case. Arjun uses his wife's connections to the bank to make it seem as though Sunny had been stealing money from the bank and had run away. This way, the police no longer believe Sunny had been killed. However, Naina feels guilty and is upset at Arjun's actions. Refusing to believe her son could ever steal, Rani confronts Naina disguised as an economist at a business event. She reveals that she knows Naina had never been in Paris and that Naina is her last hope to know the whereabouts of her son. Naina refuses to help Rani. A few months later, Naina and Arjun are contacted by a blackmailer. The blackmailer has Arjun throw away his phone prior to showing up at the Glen Moehr Hotel, the site of the murder. Thus, the blackmailer sends Naina a text prior to framing her.

Badal decides that Rani had a motive for killing Arjun and could have easily done so since Nirmal works in the Glen Moehr Hotel. He tells Naina that it is quite possible for Rani to have hidden in the room and received The Allen key for the window, allowing a quick escape. They can blame Rani and Nirmal for Arjun's murder and get Naina out of the case. However, Naina, having gained trust in Badal, reveals that Sunny was alive in the trunk before she disposed of the car, but she decided to kill him in order to clear her name. Surprised by Naina's murderous and selfish actions, Badal proposes an alternate sequence of events in which Naina pressured Arjun into hiding Sunny's disappearance. In this sequence of events, Arjun grows a guilty conscience to the point where he travels to the hotel to reveal the truth to Rani and Nirmal. He sends the text that Naina claims is from the blackmailer, prompting Naina to kill him. With the police knocking, Naina decides to injure herself and blame Rani for the crime. Naina refuses these events and claims that what Badal proposed before was the truth.

Given this story, Badal refuses to fight Naina's case. Naina begs for Badal's help and Badal asks her to honestly reveal whether or not she killed Arjun. Naina confesses her role in Arjun's murder. Despite her guilty confession, Badal agrees to fight her case and reveals that there was no surprise witness. He had simply bluffed to make Naina tell him the truth. Badal then excuses himself in order to take a walk outside. Meanwhile, Naina receives a call from Jimmy. During the call, she realizes that Badal's pen is interfering with the call. When the real Badal Gupta arrives outside her door, Naina takes apart Badal's pen to reveal a voice recorder that had recorded every word of their meeting. She discovers that she had actually been speaking with Nirmal, who had disguised himself as Badal. Rani calls the police and Nirmal quotes the Mahabharata, saying that Draupadi’s (Rani’s) revenge has been taken by Yudhishthira (Nirmal).

The movie ends with another famous quote from Mahabharata, said by Nirmal: "Its not always right to take revenge, but nor is it right to always forgive."

Cast

• Amitabh Bachchan as Badal Gupta/Nirmal
• Taapsee Pannu as Naina Sethi
• Amrita Singh^[12] as Rani Kaur
• Tony Luke as Arjun Joseph ^[16][13]
• Manav Kaul as Jimmy Punjabi (Naina's lawyer)^[14]
• Tanveer Ghani as Nirmal "Nimbi" Singh Toor^[19]
• Denzil Smith as Detective Sodhi^[15][16]
• Antonio Aakeel as Sunny Singh Toor
• Shome Makhija as Sunil Sethi
• Elena Fernandes as Hotel Receptionist

Filming

The principal photography of the film began on 14 June 2018 in Glasgow, Scotland.^[17][18]

Marketing and release

On 11 February 2019, Shah Rukh Khan, whose production house Red Chillies Entertainment is producing the film, tweeted two first look posters of the film, one with Bachchan's character and another with Pannu's.^[19][20][21] The film was released on International Women's Day, 8 March 2019.^[22] The film was certified by British Board of Film Classification with runtime of 118 minutes.^[23]

On 12 February 2019, Red Chillies Entertainment posted the official trailer on YouTube. The trailer reached 252K views within 1 hour and has garnered 28 million views since the day of release.^[24]

Three unplugged innovative promotional videos which involved a conversation between Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan were launched on 3 March 2019, 6 March 2019 and 9 March 2019 respectively, which also featured Taapsee Pannu, to promote the film.^[25][26]

Reception

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has scored 55% based on 11 reviews with average rating of 6/10.^[28] Gaurang Chauhan reviewing for Times Now rates the film with three and half stars out of five and opines that Sujoy Ghosh has delivered yet another interesting, enticing and an edge of the seat mystery thriller.^[29] Rachit Gupta of The Times of India also rates the film with three and half stars out of five and finds that the film is a slick but predictable thriller with solid performances. He say, "Sujoy Ghosh’s Badla delivers solid thrills and some genuine twists with great effect." He feels that this whodunit film, keeps the viewer engaging and constantly guessing about the big reveal. Cinema200 too gave it three and half stars out of five and praised the climax alongwith Sujoy Ghosh's direction.^[14] Anupama Chopra of Film Companion gives two and half stars out of five with remarks, "Nothing is what it seems and there are many turns, but the film isn’t as clever as it thinks it is." and concludes the review as "Badla remains watchable until the end but it doesn’t become essential viewing." ^[30] Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV giving it three stars out of five, finds Amitabh Bachchan classy and Taapsee Pannu right on button in edgy thriller.^[31] Taran Adarsh gives the film three and half stars out of five and finds it captivating and star cast of film Amitabh Bachchan, Taapsee and Amrita Singh brilliant.^[32]

Box office

In its opening weekend Badla collected {{INR}}27.38 crore from domestic market.^[33] {{as of|2019|4|7}} the domestic gross is {{INR}}100.66 crore and overseas gross is {{INR}}34.61 crore taking the worldwide gross collection to {{INR}}135.27 crore.^[4][5]

Soundtrack

The music of the film is composed by Amaal Mallik, Anupam Roy and Clinton Cerejo while the lyrics are penned by Kumaar, A. M. Turaz, Siddhant Kaushal, Manoj Yadav, Anupam Roy and Jizzy. Amitabh Bachchan, inspired by Ranveer Singh's Gully Boy, rapped the song "Aukaat".^[35]

References

External links

• {{IMDb title|8130968}}
• {{Facebook|BadlaFilm}}
• Badla on Bollywood Hungama

• Doug Stewart
• Doug Stoner
• Doug Stromback
• Doug Swail
• Doug Tait
• Doug Tate
• Doug Taylor Motorsports
• Doug Thayer
• Doug (The Grudge Character)
• Doug Thomas
• Doug Tietjens
• Doug Tilling
• Doug Timm
• Doug Tirola
• Doug Turner (disambiguation)
• Doug Turner (Mozilla)
• Doug Tushingham
• Doug Underwood
• Doug Urbanski
• Doug Vernon
• Doug Virden
• Doug Walker (Entertainer)
• Doug Walker (entertainer)
• Doug Walker (internet personality)
• Doug Walpole